Hyperkin RetroN 5 Console Announced, Can Play Old Game Cartridges
Today, Hyperkin officially showed off their console, and it’s been renamed the RetroN 5, since it has five cartridge slots.
Announced at this weekend’s Midwest Gaming Classic, the RetroN 5 made an appearance as both a rendering, and as a shiny red prototype console, still bearing the RetroN 4 badge, and without the promised GBA slot.
According to Slashdot, the Retron 5 will support cartridges from all of the following:
- NES
- SNES
- Genesis
- Famicom
- Game Boy Advance
- Mega Drive
- Super Famicom
- Game Boy Color
- Game Boy
Rather than using emulators on a PC to play ROM copies of old classic Nintendo and Sega games, the RetroN will allow you to play from original game cartridges and with original controllers, Slashdot reports.
In addition, it will offer an HDMI output for playing games on today’s HDTVs, and a special video enhancement circuit to ensure high quality playback at resolutions up to 720p.
The RetroN 5 will also offer technology to improve the audio quality compared to what you’re used to hearing from emulators, with the ability to increase playback frequency if you so choose.
The RetroN 5 uses an ARM-based System-on-Chip. Hyperkin prefers not to reveal the exact CPU/GPU and memory chips it uses, for fear of tipping off competitors. After all, the process of locating appropriate hardware for clone systems is a tricky one.
Hyperkin hasn’t revealed the pricing or an exact release date for the RetroN 5, but they’re hoping to release the system this July – though they were clear they want to give their development team enough time to put a shiny coat of polish on the finished product, so that date isn’t carved in stone.
You can watch the launch video below :
[Via Slashdot, Technabob]
